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About

Mission

/r/Fantasy is the internet’s largest discussion forum for the greater Speculative Fiction genre. We welcome respectful dialogue related to speculative fiction in literature, games, film, and the wider world.

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Values

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Interact with the community in good faith.

Interactions should not primarily be for personal benefit. Personal benefit includes, but is not limited to: financial gain from sales or referral links, traffic to your own website/blog/channel, karma farming, critiques or feedback of your work from the community, etc. This also applies to you posting on behalf of your friend/family member/neighbor.

I’m the author of two novels from Tor Books, UNBREAKABLE and INDOMITABLE (on sale today!). Both are part of the Chronicles of Promise Paen. Yeah? Ask me about that. My protagonist, Promise, is a kick-butt Marine who’s been compared to Katee Sackhoff’s Starbuck meets STARSHIP TROOPERS with a dash of FIREFLY. (Summer Glau + Jayne’s arsenal = viewing bliss)
wcbauers.com has more on the books.

For fun, I howl and break stuff. My third degree black belt in Taekwondo is about a year away. Nothing relaxes like hitting a heavy bag (or your sparring partner). I’m the father of three guys (10, 8, 5). The alpha unit, Heather, is a knitting wonder woman (just need to convince her to cosplay it). We live in the Rocky Mountains with the best rescue in the world, Bailey - Pit, Ridgeback, Boxer mix; she could tear you a new one but wouldn’t hurt a soul. Except for that guy we buried behind the old…er…

Finding your voice...IMHO requires a lot of time and experimentation, and a willingness to fail, and fail, and fail spectacularly. I started a novel and after 22,000 words pitched the entire thing. It was competent but not noteworthy. And, it really wasn't speaking to me (but that's another post).

Before UNBREAKABLE was published, a very prominent literary agent told me it would likely never sell or be published. I queried over thirty agents and received some very nice rejection letters. I say that because you not only have to find your voice but then you have to stand by it, even when critics tell you it's not good enough.

So, carve out time to write. Stay at it. Find some trustworthy readers who 1. know what they are talking about and 2. won't blow smoke at you. My mom is one of mine but she's also very critical (former English teacher).

As for writing process, very undisciplined. Ha! I write well under pressure and to deadline. Military Science Fiction is a genre I love to read, and one I know well too. Write what you love and what speaks to you, and carve out time to write weekly. Get a routine of some kind. Doesn't have to be perfect but it does need to be a present part of your life if you want to be a serious writer.

ENDER'S GAME. I was small for my age. 5 feet nothing as a freshman. Hallway lockers aren't very spacious. Ender helped me survive high school. I figured if he could put up with Battle School, well, then I could survive HS.

I'm more a stream-of-conscious writer, which is to say a seat-of-your-pants novelist. The synopsis has a place. But, overthinking the creative process shorts discovery. It's important to get out of your head and let your heart have a say too.

The best exercise I know is a daily or weekly goal. 5000 words a week. 1500 a day. Whatever. Goal yourself. Get your thoughts on the page. Once you have a first draft set it aside and leave it alone for a month. Forgot about it. Then go back and edit and rewrite, because you'll need to. Before trying this with a full length novel, give it a go with short story first. 3000 - 5000 words. Write it. Put it down for a bit. Go back to it with fresh eyes and make it better.

Just wanted to say welcome to the sub where all spec fiction is appreciated (or at least tolerated ;) I'm quite the Brian Staveley fan myself. SF is fun for me as well with my favorite SF authors being Lois McMaster Bujold and Ann Leckie. I just saw that you interviewed Ann and can't wait to read it.

So, tell me your elevator spiel about Unbreakable. Does it begin a trilogy or an ongoing series? How do you find writing a female protag? Easy? Hard? Also, were you in the military?

I never served. Many in my family have, and many more friends are serving today in various branches or have since retired. They are my heroes.

Loved ANCILLARY JUSTICE by the way. Wow, wow, WOW!

Elevator spiel: GIRL INTERRUPTED meets STARSHIP TROOPERS on the plains of LONESOME DOVE. I know how weird that sounds.
Or Honor Harrington (Weber's protagonist) meets Johnny Rico (STARSHIP TROOPERS) aboard the Serenity. Or, girls gets orphaned, enlists to slake the pain and get some payback, returns to her birth-world years late to stop a planetary invasion.

As for writing female protags, I wouldn't say easy or hard but rather a natural choice to make. One day I discovered my main character, Promise. She happened to be a girl. I went with it. Although, to be honest, I do have an interest in women in front line combat roles. So there's that too.

I love the SF crossover in this sub. I dig it. Also, Katee Sackhoff holds a special place in my heart, as does the entire BG series (it happens to be the first TV show I binge-watched on Netflix and I was depressed for weeks after it ended). Thanks for coming over today. I wanted to ask you a few questions:

How did you get connected to Cherry Weiner? How did you you get noticed by Tor after that point?

I read Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns a few years back. I really enjoyed the series as a military space opera. Are you familiar with his work? If so, did he influence your work in any way, or should I expect something completely different?

Cherry Weiner is a little titan and I'm lucky to have her as my agent. I queried over thirty agents over the course of a year. Cherry was one of the first to write me back. She asked questions. She put me through a series of tests. Then she took me on. Two weeks later I had a deal with Tor. She's very good at what she does.

Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns sounds interesting. I'll have to check it out.

As for influences, they are legion: David Weber, Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune, Battletech novels (particularly those of Michael Stackpole), THE LAST STARFIGHTER, FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR, Transformers. I'll stop there. The original Battlestar Galactica series. The A-Team, Macgyver, and now I’m done.

I imagine it's different for every writer. She liked what I showed her. But the manuscript needed work. She asked me to make some changes and then watched how I took direction and feedback. It was a process of months.

Dune is my favourite sci fi novel of my limited collection of sci fi books I have read and I enjoyed it the most. How space opera-y are your books? Looking for something with great intrigue rather than purely "explosions".

Well, I do like me some explosions. But I also explore themes of family, loss, and living with PTSD. There's a mother/daughter story that runs through the books, and a healthy does of political intrigue. Politics and war go together like fish and Pinot Grigio.

Welcome! Since you're in the fantasy sub-Reddit, how do you feel about authors who combine fantasy and sci-fi tropes into a single story? Do you think it works? Why or why not? Would you incorporate fantasy in any of your stories?

I'm afraid I'd come up short. Strictly speaking, Taekwondo is a hard contact sport that emphasizes kicking. It's not all kicking but in TKD the kicks are the money shots. Weapons training has been brought into the sport from other disciplines. But, it's not a part of traditional TKD. And, grappling isn't either. Get a TKD martial artist on the ground, unless he's cross-trained in another discipline, well, he won't have a ground game. That's a deficiency I need to shore up. I'm thinking Krav Maga is in order.

ENDER'S GAME came at the right time. I was bullied in junior high and high school. Ender helped me stay sane.

Cookie: snickerdoodle, because it's as fun to say as it is to eat.

As for young'uns, I have three boys. My oldest, Andrew, discovered the MAGIC TREEHOUSE books in 3rd grade and blew through 50+ novels in a year. You might start there. There's so much available now it's pretty easy to introduce kids to spec fic at a young age. When I was growing up the choices were far more limited. GERONIMO STILTON: SPACEMICE is a lot of fun too.